“The concept of liveability is simple: it assesses which locations around the world provide the best or the worst living conditions.”

We covered the 2012 edition of this Liveability Survey which has a broad range of uses. It started out as “a means of testing whether Human Resource Departments needed to assign a hardship allowance as part of expatriate relocation packages. While this function is still a central potential use of the survey, it has also evolved as a broad means of benchmarking cities.”

The study includes 140 cities scored on “30 qualitative and quantitative factors across five broad categories: stability; healthcare; culture and environment; education; and infrastructure.” The score is calculated overall and for each category “relative to New York and an overall position in the ranking of 140 cities” was determined. Based on EIU’s methodology, the 10 most liveable cities in 2013 are:

8) Helsinki, Finland – Score: 96.0. Helsinki’s high score was a perfect one in the stability category.

9) Perth, Australia – Score: 95.9. As the 9th place city, its highest score was perfect in healthcare.

10) Auckland, New Zealand – Score: 95.7. A perfect score in education helped Auckland earn its place in the top ten.

Australia’s four cities in the top ten made it the most ranked country on our list followed by Canada with three cities. The USA didn’t have any cities make the top ten of this survey.

Reports of this nature are becoming increasingly important and regularly used by “city councils, organisations or corporate entities looking to test their locations against others to see general areas where liveability can differ.” This is important when planning business, investment or resource relocation, development and expansion.

Congratulations to Vancouver, Toronto and Calgary for once again representing the Great White North by finishing in the top five.